tiresome but nonetheless always sure of itself

Category: politics

– The bombshell NYT report that emails sent to and from Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort – the closest advisors to Trump in the Summer of 2016 – all show clear intention and follow through to collude with a foreign power to use their government’s resources to smear another candidate in a presidential election. It’s not really surprising considering who we’re talking about. Paul Manafort was an agent of the Russian government in Ukraine, Jared Kushner is a sniveling nincompoop whose only accomplishment is to […]

– I cannot believe I have to say this, but this ain’t about WMDs. – It is unfathomable to me that anyone can look at the air strikes launched by US warships and authorized by the historically unpopular President and think that the quandary here is one of bellicose utility: if we have the power to end suffering, should we? It is even more infuriating that those who have obsessed over Trump’s connections with Russian intelligence for the last month – to the exclusion of important coalition building around critical domestic […]

– I recently became a dad, for the first time. – I knew before my daughter was born that she would depend on me to give her a leg up in this world. And when I first saw her, I felt it in my heart – I owe her everything I can give possibly give her. Within reason. Every parent wants to give their kid every possible advantage in life. I want my daughter to eat the best foods and attend the best schools, and I’ll provide that to her […]

♦ There is a long and noble tradition of progressives who cite passages from the founding documents in their calls for truly universal rights. ♦ Martin Luther King, Jr. is perhaps the most prominent of these voices. His speeches built upon the loftiest promises of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and then added his own. Abraham Lincoln’s funereal address at the killing grounds of Gettysburg has similarly ascended into canon, and is trotted out by every debate amateur, every screenwriter, and every cretin who seeks public […]

“I love being a millennial, because my framed Obama poster becomes ironic at will.” I wrote this joke for a show in 2014 that I knew would have an older crowd, and people laughed. It wasn’t only a joke. I actually do have a framed Shepard Fairey ‘Progress’ poster framed and hung on the wall of my office, staring hopefully over my shoulder as I write this. Its meaning to me has drastically changed since 2008, because I have changed, and the country has mostly stayed the same. […]

They say elections have consequences, but they rarely remind you how permanent those consequences can be. The plan for Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have been available for some time. If you’re like me, you read through them before today because you wanted to see if there was some special sauce that most of us were missing about this putrid man and his vague but ominous promises to remake our country. But no one will blame you if this is the first time you’re seeing this, […]

It is a dark day in the United States, and the world. While a slim majority of American voters chose to back the multicultural, urban, liberal party of incremental progress, enough people, in the states that mattered most, chose to throw the election to a reactionary populist who openly attacked ethnic and religious minorities, and will use the powers of the state to prosecute his enemies, foreign and domestic. There is little comfort in looking to government in the short term – the people with the power of appointment, […]